From Dad's Army to Harry Potter: Welcome to the world's biggest dressing-up box

By ROBERT HARDMAN

Last updated at 23:54 11 April 2008

Blackadder's trousers are hanging next to a red Paul Daniels' tailcoat and an absolute shocker of a jacket in various pastel shades.

I look at the label inside. It says: "Mr J. Inman. Are You Being Served?" No surprises there, then.

There are racks of old cabaret clothes from the most politically incorrect prime-time show in modern television history - The Black And White Minstrel Show - and a selection of hilariously implausible alien outfits from Dr Who.

An Aladdin's Cave just off the North Circular road in London, it has millions of costumes

I wander between several hundred yards of ballet tutus hanging opposite a selection of hideous blazers in various shades of beige.

The label inside one of them says: "E. Wise".

Next to it is one for "E. Morecambe".

They are just a tiny selection of the new arrivals in what is now the greatest dressing-up box in the world - a wardrobe which includes everything from Dad's Army and Z Cars to Dr Zhivago and Harry Potter.

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Even Hollywood cannot compete with this colossal, Oscar-winning, moth-proof warehouse I am standing in just off London's North Circular Road.

In fact, with more than four million costumes in here - from Roman centurions to Victorian street urchins to astronauts - this place contains enough clothes to dress the entire population of Ireland or New Zealand.

And many of these outfits are not just familiar; they are part of history.

Last week, it was announced that the BBC's entire costume collection had been sold to Angels, Britain's oldest costume house.

Owned and run by the Angel family since 1840, the company already had a collection of three million costumes for the entertainment industry, plus another 100,000 outfits for public hire as fancy dress.

Some of its clothes - such as Christopher Lee's original Dracula cloak - are now so valuable that they are kept in a safe.

Of the countless productions kitted out from here, a staggering 30 have won an Oscar for best costume design, Titanic and Lawrence Of Arabia among them.

But Angels has never been very strong in the light entertainment department.

Sure, it could dress entire armies to recreate World War II (it did Saving Private Ryan), but it was pretty pushed when it came to the Seventies and Eighties.

So, when the BBC shut down its old costume department in February, the Angel family stepped forward with an undisclosed offer.

The result is that a million costumes built up over half a century of BBC TV programme-making will not now end up at auction.

Instead, the BBC's multi-storey wardrobe is being moved a few miles across London to join Angels' collection.

There is nothing else quite like it anywhere else in the world.

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"London has always been the global capital of costume, but this is unquestionably now the greatest collection in the world," says company chairman Tim Angel, 58.

"Our strength has always been in period costumes. We have Victorian dresses which are still going strong.

"The settings for period dramas are moving forwards in time, though, and there is an increasing nostalgia for the Seventies and Eighties. That is why these BBC costumes are so wonderful."

Following the success of the Seventies recent retro-drama Life On Mars, it could be a shrewd investment.

Tim's career has involved everything from measuring Roger Moore's inside leg to being chairman of BAFTA.

With an OBE to his name, he is the fifth generation of a family business which started out repairing costumes for Victorian actors in London's West End.

As film and, then, television took off in the 20th century, the Angel family expanded its range.

The advent of colour television served only to increase the demand for authenticity and attention to detail.

In 1992, when the company took over its closest rivals and needed more space, it converted its old West End headquarters into a fancy dress hire operation and moved the professional wardrobe up to the huge complex in Hendon, North London, where it remains to this day.

And now Angels is expanding again to accommodate all the new kit from the BBC.

"We had six miles of clothing before; now we've got another two miles," explains Tim's 26-year- old son Jeremy, the creative director, as he takes me round the site.

Housed on an unlovely industrial estate near Wembley Stadium, it is the last place you would expect to find Oscar-winning chic.

Once inside, though, I discover an ultra-modern operation, with 120 people, most of whom have a tape measure round their necks.

The reception area boasts costumes from the company's latest big-name projects, including this year's Oscarwinning films Atonement and La Vie En Rose.

Several office suites are occupied by designers from upcoming Hollywood productions.

Privacy is fiercely guarded, with all the blinds pulled down.

"I used to work in Savile Row, but this is much more exciting," says Maria Barbosa, who runs the inhouse team of designers, cutters and tailors.

I bet she must have measured a few famous chests in her time.

"They all come through here," she says proudly.

So who are her favourites? She thinks for a moment, then says: "David Suchet and David Jason. Now they are always real gentlemen."

In the tailoring department, I find head cutter Gillian Carew creating a lively frock coat for a Dr Who Christmas special, plus a small pin-striped jacket. Who is going to wear that?

"It's for a new goblin in the latest Harry Potter," she explains.

Jeremy leads me through the airtight double doors which seal off the clothes from the rest of the world.

Suddenly, I am on a balcony looking down on a warehouse the size of an aircraft hangar spanning every item of human apparel from Ancient Greece to Star Wars.

"That's Victorians, Edwardians and Georgians down there," says Jeremy, gesturing at a multi-storey labyrinth of bodices, bonnets and tailcoats.

We set off down a side section on an upper floor and I am soon lost in military uniforms rising 20 feet up to the ceiling.

There are huge storage boxes with helmets and webbing for every sort of soldier: World War I Turkish infantrymen, World War II Belgian officers, and so on.

So what's the market like for Belgian soldiers these days?

"I'm not sure. But if you need them, we've got them," says Jeremy.

After wandering up and down a few aisles, the landscape suddenly switches from green to blue.

"This is all naval," says Jeremy.

"You've just walked past the entire cast of Das Boot."

I turn back to a long row of hefty grey leather jackets used in the 1981 German submarine drama.